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The concept is nothing new, PR firms have been providing packed content for news consumption for years, and news organisations with ever decreasing budgets and
by iso947 6y ago
The concept is nothing new, PR firms have been providing packed content for news consumption for years, and news organisations with ever decreasing budgets and time simply use them verbatim.
I’m sure there are criticisms about specific points, there always are, but I was aghast reading Flat Earth News a decade ago. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy for £3 on kindle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Davies#Critical_reaction_to_Flat_Earth_News https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Davies#Critical_reaction_...
- downerending 6y agoThis is correct. Had a friend in PR who did this sort of thing. They have money and time, and local news stations do not. It's probably not so bad when the piece is on the wonders of asparagus and why you should eat more.
- marakv2 6y agoIt is that bad (imo), unless it's clearly stated that it's a paid advertisement (that's what PR is), then you cannot trust your news source.
- Spivak 6y agoBut it’s not a paid advertisement. It’s a corporate blog post published to an RSS feed for journalists to do with as they please. It’s worse than a paid advertisement because news orgs are running it for free and doing absolutely nothing novel or critical with it.
- marakv2 6y agoTheir not paying for it? That doesn't seem right.
- runawaybottle 6y agoThis dark pattern is particular bad when extended to critical things, like national politics. Political think-tanks did a mass campaign like this to build the narrative for the Iraq War. Heritage Foundation is one of the really bad actors here.